SHOOTING BANS HAPPENED AND WILL HAPPEN AGAIN

Major campaign wins you may have missed

FROM THE LEAGUE AGAINST SPORTS

Dear John,

Two of the League’s biggest successes of 2019 happened recently, but rather than try and tell you about them in amongst our six-week long general election campaign, we wanted to take the time to properly explain what we’ve achieved with your support.

University of Reading

Thanks to your action, University of Reading has taken the decision to make this shooting season its last as it has banned shooting on its land.

As well as supporting our direct action outside the university’s gates during the popular two-day Freshers’ Fayre event, more than 8,000 of you wrote to the Vice Chancellor calling on the university to commit to scrapping 'game' bird shooting rights.

Happily, following a full consultation that included both the League and the pheasant shoot, as well as other stakeholders, this is exactly what has happened.

This is just another nail in the shooting industry’s coffin. Following League campaigns, again supported by you, both the University of Wales and natural Resources Wales decided they would ban shooting on their land.

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Yorkshire Water

Since July 2018 the League, working with local campaign group Ban Bloodsports on Yorkshires Moors (BBYM), has been campaigning to end driven grouse shooting on Yorkshire Water’s land. Yorkshire Water is one of the largest landowners leasing moorland for grouse shooting, with the company actively allowing the practice on 13 different sections of moorland. Campaigning actions have taken place in a dozen different towns and cities across Yorkshire and in London.

Thousands of you contacted Yorkshire Water to urge the company to ban shooting on its land, and as a direct result the company has taken a new view on grouse shooting. Rather than automatically renewing grouse shooting leases, as had been the case, they will all be placed for newly-stringent review as the leases run out.

This is a landmark decision and paves the way for grouse shooting to end on Yorkshire Water land, which before was not even an option. The League does not believe that driven grouse shooting matches any of new criteria set by the company and that alternative land management options will have to be sought.

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We didn’t expect to be able to tell you about these victories until next year, but the fact that we can just goes to show that our campaigns work – and that’s down to you and your support.

However, there is still plenty of work to do, but I’m sure like me you are happy to end 2019 in raising a glass to the fact that that the shooting industry’s days are numbered.

Thank you and congratulations,
Nick
Nick Weston
Head of Campaigns